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The monstrous is unsettling because it appears to belong nowhere but its own boundless category. Like a lobster at a kosher meal, it always exemplifies chaos. Reduced to curiosities, the bearded lady, the piebald child, and the dwarf are thrust into an impossible genus: extraordinem--containing everything from fingered lemons to bogus mermaids.

Peter the Great of Russia's Kunstkammer claimed four human prodigies including a dwarf so prized that when he died Peter had him stuffed and placed on view along with all the other meraviglie, including his defunct footman's seven foot skeleton, topped by a skull that, mysteriously, was not his own. The seventeenth century dwarf Sebastiano Biavati was the curator of the cabinet in which he was on display--a species of genteel house arrest--and the only thing alive in a collection of tusks, dead turtles, corals and curious shells. Writes Purcell:

SUMMARY: In the domain of visual images, those of fine art form
a tiny minority. This book calls upon art historians
to look beyond their traditional subjects to the vast
array of "nonart" images, including those from
science, technology, commerce, medicine, music, and
archaeology. Such images can be as rich and expressive
as any canonical painting. Using illustrations as
examples, Elkins proposes a way of thinking about
visual analysis, one that relies on an object's own
internal sense of organization. The author begins by
demonstrating the arbitrariness of current criteria
used by art historians for selecting images for study.
He urges scholars to adopt, instead, the far broader
criteria of the young field of image studies. After
analyzing the philosophic underpinnings of this
interdisciplinary field, he surveys a range of images,
from calligraphy to mathematical graphs and abstract
painting. Throughout, Elkins blends philosophic
analysis with historical detail to produce a sense of
such basic terms as pictures, writing, and notation.

Sundays, September 19./ 26. evening video screening
18:00 -21.30 special selection for the exhibition,
Hito Steyerl, Lee Ween/ James Luna and others,
program will be announced here!

"A Complete Guide to Rewriting Your History" sets out from an ironically inflated, idealistic aspiration to produce a comprehensive guide to the rewriting of history, a desire to create an all-encompassing narrative with which one's life is explained. What do the mechanics of such an endeavour look like? The title plays with the notion of autonomy and our capacity to re-evaluate, redefine or re-map the world.

Investigating the potential for independent thinking and possibilities for autonomous action, the works selected for the exhibition focus in many cases on the abuse of power, where the control of history may be a strategic practice by governmental or other agencies. In other works it seems that developing a critical audience is a priority. Some real interventions are suggested, and happily we do not always have to postpone our self-made liberation to a later date.

The first draft of the guide is ready!

The artists describe their works in the exhibition (edited to a short version):

The Speculative Archive works with existing collections of historical records to produce new documents. Current research focuses on state secrecy as a memory practice and its effects on contemporary political dynamics. Speculative Archive projects have appeared as installations, presentations, and single-channel video. The Archive was founded by Julia Meltzer and David Thorne in 1999.

During World War II photographic reconnaissance played a major part in the intelligence war. The advanced photographic techniques developed gave intelligence officers the ability to view the enemy's activities in 3D, and make highly accurate assessments. Discover a new way of looking at our history and our future at evidenceincamera.

Evidenceincamera.co.uk has been created by The Aerial Reconnaissance Archives (TARA), at Keele University. We are an official place of deposit for The National Archives.